


red thread [and blue and green and pink and yellow and purple]

by cosmoscrow



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: @dreamworks: let shiro rest dammit, Family Feels, Family Fluff, HEY MAN WHO IS READY FOR SOME MORE SPACE DAD, Is this too many tags, Lance knows how to knit, NO ONE KNOWS, Nightmares, Space Dad Shiro, a shit ton of knitting, brief mentions of a panic attack and blood, broganes? broganes., found family trope, hey uh yeah can i get a Platonic Shiro & Paladins, no, shiro appreciation, this is honestly just pure fluff, where are they getting the yarn from??, will i ever tire of the Space Dad trope?, yeah i know i said fluff bUT ITS ONLY A SMALL MENTION
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 21:59:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12021870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmoscrow/pseuds/cosmoscrow
Summary: "Are you...knitting?"Lance gave him a deadpan look, baby blue and piggy pink strings of yarn carefully looped around his fingers."No, I'm obviously frying eggs, don't you see?"[or the one where Shiro catches Lance knitting and somehow joins in.]





	red thread [and blue and green and pink and yellow and purple]

**Author's Note:**

> someone: "will you ever write more than just voltron fics?"
> 
> me, sweating: :/
> 
>  
> 
> @vld-official, i heard you wanted some platonic Lance & Shiro bonding over knitting and i

Shiro felt _awful_.

Honestly more dead than alive, but after another night riddled full of nightmares, _memories_ , he kinda understands the sentiment. He sighed, rubbing his tired eyes that probably showcase an impressive pair of dark eye bags.

( _"Man, they might as well be the Gucci handbags my Mom got for Momma a few Anniversaries ago." Hunk had told him once._ )

He yawned, before snapping his mouth shut. He needs to pull it together, they have training after all today and Shiro's sure the Princess wouldn't approve of a supposed leader in a half-asleep, half-dead state. Luckily enough, training won't start until a few hours, he figured he might as well get some rest to get some of his grip back before beating up a few training gladiators and then ultimately getting his ass handed to him at the higher difficulty level. He entered the common room and the halts in his movements.

Lance is already occupying one of the couches, sitting comfortably against the orange cushions, humming softly while his hands seemed to be busy with something in his lap. For a moment, Shiro thought the boy was fiddling around with his tablet-like device, which they all got from Coran after Pideg and Hunk made some modifications to them. But as he got closer, what he saw in Lance's hand was definitely not the alien device.

"Are you...knitting?"

Lance jumped a bit at the sudden noise of someone speaking to him, but as he turned his head to face Shiro, he gave him a deadpan look.

"No," He said, carefully re-looping the baby blue and piggy pink threads around his fingers. "I'm obviously frying eggs, don't you see?"

Shiro snorted a bit before joining the boy on the couch, immediately sinking back into the cushions.

There was a comfortable silence; Shiro can hear the occasional metallic _clink!_ of the knitting needles hitting together, while Lance himself filled the room with his quiet humming, seemingly unperturbed by the Black Paladin's presence. After a while with no way of finding a small nap, Shiro turned his head instead to watch the the colourful threads falling into place in the shape of a forming rectangle.

"What are you making?" He asked after a while and Lance stops his humming and grinned a bit, his eyes never straying from the task in his hands.

"Dunno," He chirped. "Maybe a scarf? I'm not sure yet, do we need scarves in space? Maybe one day the heating could fail on us- wait no, then we would all die." For a moment he appeared legitimately concerned, which made Shiro chuckle.

"Well, whatever it is, it looks pretty good already."

Lance gave him a stunned look before his mouth curled into bright grin. Then, he holds out his knitting tools towards the man. "D'ya wanna try?"

Shiro hesitated. "I don't know, Lance, I don't want to ruin your work–"

"What? No, scarves are super easy to make, so don't worry. Here," Shiro clumsily fumbled with the tools as they were thrusted into his hands. "I already gave you a headstart, I'll teach you!"

Carefully, Lance rearranges the hands of his leader to position the needles correctly. Then, he grabs the abandoned strings and wound them around Shiro's fingers.

"Okay, now you loop this like that and– oh nonono, not like this, here, like this!" Truly not wanting to ruin Lance's previous work, Shiro carefully watched and listened to the boy's instructions. He slightly pulled at the strings upon Lance's words to tighten the row and went onto to two rows under his instructions. At the third row, Lance went quiet and just watched Shiro's hands work, occasionally pointing out a missing loop or showing Shiro how to hold the needles properly. After about 6 more rows, Shiro lifted up the forming cloth; the bottom of it, Lance's part, looked nicely crafted with a dense surface. Shiro's part however, looked still quite clumsy, riddled with the two or three holes and loose rows.

"Hey, not bad!" Lance praised him anyway. "You did way better than Keith, he constantly got his finger tangled until he nearly rage quit because his patience ran out."

"Well," Shiro laughed quietly. "That does sound like him."

He started to loop the threads back around his fingers again – they were soft and felt very comfortable against the skin of his left hand. He could easily imagine himself in a big sweater made out of this yarn. Must be very warm, he thought. Feeling eyes on him, he turned his head to see Lance smiling at him, eyes bright.

"Wanna keep going?"

Shiro's eyes fell back onto the scarf-in-progress.

"...yeah, sure."

By the time training was announced, Shiro almost got halfway through with the scarf and found himself with a brand-new set of knitting tools after Lance told him he had another set in his room.

* * *

"Hunk,"

Said boy looked up from his plate of food goo as they were all seated at the dinner table, quirking his eyebrows towards Lance, who regarded him a very serious look.

"If the heating in the castle ever failed, what would happen?"

His friend blinked a few times.

"Uh, the most probable outcome, I guess, is that we'd all freeze to death in a matter of minutes?" He shrugs, while Lance nodded.

"Huh, thought so."

From besides Lance, Pidge, with eye-bags as big as Shiro's from another night spent programming on her laptop and actively contemplating her life due to the absence of at least 48 hours of sleep, snorted while sluggishly shovelling goo into her mouth.

"Oh thank god."

Shiro sighed.

" _Pidge_."

* * *

"Hey, Lance,"

The Blue Paladin hummed, eyes still trained on the purple threads between his knitting needles.

"How did you know how to knit in the first place?"

Him and Shiro once again sat in the common room, knitting needles in hands while Shiro himself was finally finishing the scarf, Lance seemed to have started a new project. Lance pursed his lips in thought before answering.

"My grandma taught me when I was about...7? 8? I can't really remember." He revealed, pulling a string taut. "I'm the youngest sibling in my family, you know? So while I did get a lot of attention, many of them just couldn't spend time with me because they were so busy doing their own thing. And grandma couldn't really play Space Rangers with me."

Shiro snorted a bit, while Lance chuckled.

"So instead, she taught me how to knit. At first I thought it was really lame but I gave me something to do, so I stuck around. After a while, it just finally clicked that grandma and I are kinda, you know, the same. Everyone was too busy to be with us all the time, so...we just stuck together, knitting while sometimes listening to grandma yelling at the TV whenever she watched those overdramatic soap-operas."

Lance smiled softly at the memories, expertly looping the threads around his fingers and hooking them onto the needles. Shiro had long abandoned his work in favour if listening to the boy.

"After a while, it just became a habit, I guess? Whenever I feel stressed, homesick or just fidgety, I'd go knit." Lance said, pulling another thread before sending Shiro a grin.

The man can't help but smile back.

In the end, those small meet-ups kinda became routine. They'd just stroll in, take a seat and begin to knit and talk.

It was good, this sense of normalcy.

* * *

Shiro's heart hammered almost painfully against his chest as he jerks awake with a barely concealed scream of pure terror, bolting upright in his bed before franticly shuffling back until his back hit the cool surface of the castle walls. Dark, purple-ish light hallways filled with glowing yellow eyes and pink visors of drones, slowly fade as the soft, dim white lights of the castle filter through.

( _Right, castle ship. Paladin of Voltron. Black Lion. No Galra. No Arena. No blood. No screams._ )

His chest heaved with the heavy breaths he took as he clicked his tongue a few times to wet his dry mouth. He was still shaking. He tried to take deep breaths, trying to calm his heart beat down, trying to find a calm rhythm. Shiro rubbed his arms nervously, his technique was not working. The dull hum of the castle seemed abnormally loud, pressing in on Shiro, suffocating him. He needed a distraction, anything really. He took another shaky breath, when something on his desk not far away from his bed caught his eye.

A small basket with balls of yarn, courtesy of Coran after Lance seemingly told him about Shiro's new hobby, with the knitting needles Lance gifted him stuck in one of the balls.

Shiro had finished the scarf just recently, the very proof hanging over the back of the chair. The man stared at the materials before he shakily made is way over to them, grasping the needles and the ball of yarn they stuck in – a blue one, the colour of the clear sky at a sunny day. He held the ball in his left hand, feeling the soft and squishy texture, soothing him. With the blanket draped over his shoulders, body pressed into a corner, legs carefully folded and knitting set in hand, Shiro carefully unfurled the yarn.

As he prepared the thread, Shiro could almost hear Lance's instructions. He wound the thread around his still shaking fingers and began.

_Loop._

_Hook._

_Pull._

_Loop._

_Hook._

_Pull._

_Loop._

_Hook._

_Pull._

It was like he was moving on autopilot, the method ingrained in his mind and body as he started to knit...whatever he was knitting. He had no goal in mind, instead he willed himself to get lost in the routine and rhythm of forming the thread and creating something entirely new.

His breath slowed.

A while after, his heart calmed down.

Then, his hands stopped shaking.

His room, so silent, now was filled with the metallic sound of the needles hitting each other. And, as Shiro later gazed onto his work, an idea formed.

* * *

"...and then I said, ' _At least I don't wear my hair in a Mullet in these years!_ ' and then he goes like, ' _Yeah well your forehead could be mistaken for a landing pad!_ ' which honestly? Fucking rude as hell!"

They sat in the common room again, Lance prattling on about their latest mission while Shiro listened. He chuckled at the last bit.

"Lance, language." Shiro said, smiling a little as he knits. He heard the boy huff.

"Fine; fucking rude as _heck_." The younger of the two promptly giggled when Shiro shot him an unimpressed look of ' _You know what I meant_ '. After Lance sobered up, he started to pout again.

"But my forehead isn't _that_ big, right, Shiro?" He gave the man puppy eyes. Shiro paused to look at him, squint and then purse his lips thoughtfully.

"Well–" He started and laughed when Lance interrupted him with an indignant squawk.

"The Betrayal is real here!" The boy wailed, dramatically tossing himself onto the couch cushions. "I am surround by traitors! Fakes! Backstabbers!"

Shiro only rolled his eyes in amusement, still smiling as he checked his progress, tightening a loose thread.

"There, there," He said as he re-loops the string on his fingers. "You still have Hunk."

"No, he is officially cancelled as of this morning." Lance muttered.

Shiro quirked an eyebrow. "How come?"

"He didn't share the last cookie with me."

"You already ate all of your own share, Lance."

The boy, meanwhile sitting again with needles in hand, shot him a disgruntled look.

"...maybe so."

" _Lance_."

* * *

"Keith,"

The boy looked up from his conversation with Pidge, who was perching on kitchen counter as Shiro entered.

"Yeah?"

Shiro crossed his arms, face all Disappointed Dad™, or well, in Keith's case, Disappointed Older Brother™.

"Why did you compare Lance's forehead to a landing pad?"

Pidge cackled so hard, she cried while Keith's face screamed _Busted_.

"What the heck man, he snitched?"

" _Keith_."

* * *

This time, all of them sat in the common room. Well, minus Shiro, who was on his way, according to Allura.

"Do you...Do you think he'll like it?"

"Lance, for the 10th time," Pidge groaned, but affectionately poked Lance's side. "He'll love it, really!"

"Yeah man, you worked so hard on that thing, he'll appreciate the hell out of it, dude." Hunk added, resting a hand on Lance's shoulder.

The rest around him gave their own affirmations and encouragements, when the door slid open. Shiro entered, blue material in his hands and when he looked up, he stopped in his tracks, confused but curious.

"Oh hey, guys," He smiled. "What's up? Did I miss something?"

Keith and Allura nudged Lance in the back, who gave them an unsure look. Coran sent him a good-natured thumbs up.

"Uh," The Blue Paladin started nervously. "So, like, I knit and all, right? Well...most my stuff actually don't end up in my room, I usually give them to the others, you know? So..."

He trailed off and stepped forward, presenting a purple cloth, which he lifted at the corners. It unfurled and Shiro raised his eyebrows in surprise.

It was a purple sweater, big and comfy looking, with a black cat head at the front. There is a white text above and under the cat head, reading in bold letters _#1 Black Paladin_. Speechless, Shiro just stared at it before he's met with Lance's face, smiling at him hopefully.

Then, Shiro laughed.

"I-" He started. "Oh man, I don't know what to say,"

He chuckled before showing the blue bundle in his arm – he unfurled it and everyone audibly gasped.

A blue sweater, just as big and comfy looking, with the big white words _Sharpshooter_ clumsily knit across its chest.

"Well, what a timing, I say!" Coran said, clearly amused as he tugs at his moustache, while next to him, Allura chuckled. Keith scrutinised the blue sweater in Shiro's hands.

"Kinda crooked if you ask me," He teased his brother, who pouts at him.

"Hush you," Shiro turned back to Lance. "I know it's not the best but– _Lance_?!"

At his panicked reaction, the rest finally took a look at Lance, only to find big, fat tears brimming in blue eyes as the blue Paladin dumbly stared at the blue sweater that was presented to him. Keith snorted.

"Wow, Shiro, looks like your sweater is so bad, it's making Lance cry."

That shook Lance out of his stupor as he sniffled, wailing at Keith.

"No! Back off, I love it!" He declared and snatched the sweater out of Shiro's, giving him the purple one instead. With bright eyes, the boy pulled the cloth over his head. The sweater was big on him, the too long turtle neck pooling around Lance's shoulders and partially hiding his lower face.

"Oh man," He said after a small stretch of silence. "This is comfortable as heck!"

Immediately, the boy was surrounded by Hunk, Pidge and Allura, who pull and prod at his sweater, amazed at how soft it was. Smiling, Shiro put on his own sweater, which was also too big, but holy moly, is that thing toasty. Suddenly, Lance's gaining face appeared next to him.

"Do you like it?"

Shiro smiled, feeling warm and comfortable in his sweater.

"I love it."

Lance cheered, before he pulled out his tablet device, demanding for a selfie. He grinned into the camera, standing on his toes to accomodate to Shiro's height.

"Sweaterbuddies!" He chirped and with the telltale sound of a _beep!_ , the photo was made.

* * *

A few weeks later, everyone was walking around with their own sweater.

Another day later, Shiro's tablet background displayed a group photo of everyone in their colourful sweaters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> yall idk how knitting works, my textiles teacher hated me.
> 
> but i fucking love sweaters. everyone needs them.
> 
> Thanks for reading, have a great day and take care!


End file.
